


When I Grow Up

by orphan_account



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-28
Updated: 2013-05-28
Packaged: 2017-12-13 05:40:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/820638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Lip was little, he told his mother, "when I grow up, I want to be a superhero."</p>
            </blockquote>





	When I Grow Up

**Author's Note:**

> Sleeplessness created this, along with never-ending Lip feels.

When Lip was little, he told his mother, "when I grow up, I want to be a superhero."

When he was still little, but not as, he told his father, "when I grow up, I want to me a fireman. It's like a superhero, only a hero."

When he was getting older, he asked his father, "do you know what I want to be when I grow up?", and his father didn't say a thing. "You have to ask me!", Lip explained, but Frank Gallagher didn't ask, and the world never got to know what he wanted to become.

When Lip was going to start high school, he shared his first beer with his father and asked, "do you even care?", and Frank told him, "not really".

When he got home from his first day of high school, his big sister told him, "you need to get a job, Lip, we need money. Any job, just make it happen, okay?", and the world never got to know that Lip had decided that day what he wanted to become.

When Lip got fired from his second job, his big sister spoke to him again, this time saying, "you have to take this seriously. It's important", and he never told her that he thought his dreams were more imporant, that he got tired of not following them after school hours.

When he got his first girlfriend, she didn't ask him anything besides, "you wanna fuck?", and he decided that he'd do best not telling her.

When he got his second girlfriend, she didn't ask him anything either, but she did apply to colleges for him.

When Lip got into college, he'd reached his dream, and nobody had asked him what it was, nobody had asked him if he wanted _this_ , they had just told him that it was important. But not dream kind of important. Important like getting a weekend job, or getting your shit together, or seeing to it that you aren't still high when you come to class.

When Lip got into college, after 18 years of wishing and trying his hardest, he just wasn't sure he was ready.

When he got into college, he told his big sister, "when I grow up, I want to be--", but she interrupted him and said, "you're already grown up. You mean 'when you graduate from high school'", and Lip had to smoke a whole pack of cigarettes before he could stop thinking about killing his family and pissing on the bodies before dumping them in the lake.

When Lip sat down in his dorm bed after his first day at college, he thought that he would call his mother, or his father, or his big sister. Tell them he was doing fine, that he loves his classes and that the people seem really cool and not uptight but they don't live in houses that look haunted either. He thought that he would tell his family that he was sure now, that he would finally get a win, make something of himself.

When he reached for his phone, that first day of college, Lip said to himself, "when I grow up, I want to be a superhero", and he felt like one, so he put his phone down and didn't pick it up until his brother called from the army.

When his brother called him, Lip said, "I'm living my dream", and Ian asked him, "are you a superhero?", because he remembered, somehow, and Lip felt ashamed, because he couldn't remember his brother's first dream job.

When Lip got home for Christmas, he hugged his big sister and drank wine with her even if wine tastes awful, and he told her he was grateful for everything she'd done, and that he loved her. He did love her, even if she'd never asked.

But he didn't love his mother, or his father, _because_ they'd never asked.

Lip loved Ian and Fiona, and the young ones that he got to ask himself.

*

"What do you want to be when you grow up, Debbie?"

"I don't know."

"But really, what do you want to be?"

"I don't know, stop pressuring me!"

"What about you, Carl, what do you want to be?"

"I want to be in a war."

"You mean, join the army, like Ian?"

"Nah, I just want to line people up and shoot 'em." Carl hesitated for a moment, then added, "but only the bad ones, of course."


End file.
